I Just Finished Reading...

[Ironrose]

Deena Undone by Debra K. Every

A recent publication, I was unusually keen on reading this book, since it came recommended by one S. T. Joshi, and I generally agree with what he says. But I can't say I understand what he's talking about with this one. In fact, it may end up being the worst book I'll read this year. I hope. Ouch.

With its contemporary setting in a nursing home and the basic plot centered around a situation any of us could find ourself in - caring for an ageing relative - it has potential, but this book came no where close to pulling it off. The story telling was clumsy and overstated and ended up being silly.

One star.

 

[Ligrotesque]

Deena Undone by Debra K. Every

A recent publication, I was unusually keen on reading this book, since it came recommended by one S. T. Joshi, and I generally agree with what he says. But I can't say I understand what he's talking about with this one. In fact, it may end up being the worst book I'll read this year. I hope. Ouch.

With its contemporary setting in a nursing home and the basic plot centered around a situation any of us could find ourself in - caring for an ageing relative - it has potential, but this book came no where close to pulling it off. The story telling was clumsy and overstated and ended up being silly.

One star.

It is sort of crazy how much I generally agree with Joshi but, man, I totally agree with you on this one. I do not get the recommendation at all. Thankfully, I only listened to the audio book and even that was lent to me. I see little to nothing of value in that novel.

 

[Ironrose]

The Onyx Book of Occult Fiction edited by Damian Murphy (Snuggly Books)

I read this one over several weeks, in between other reading. It a collection of modern writers, and all the stories have been previously published, though mostly not readily available. It's mostly good, though there are some that stood out more than the others.

No spoilers! But maybe that makes this review too vague for some folks.

Justin Isis The Underground Room
The mood in the story is one that works for me. It feels derivative, in that I've read something like it before (Kiernan? Ligotti?) but I don't care, because I like it. But: I was not fully present when I read it, distracted as I was by some event in my life at the time.

Thomas Phillips Alyssa
I'm not so keen on this one. I think it had promise, but neve came together for me. Also, the prose is too fragmented for my taste. It's hard to get past that.

Benjamin Tweddell The Dance of Abraxas
I wasn't sure about this one going in and for most of it, but I thought the ending was handled well, meaning not overstated or over dramatized. So, it ended well.

Thomas Stromsholt In Search of the Hidden City
Again, this is my sort of thing, a searching for what lies behind the familiar. And again, the ending does it justice: being drawn to the unknown, knowing you'll likely either never come back physically, or never be the same again.

Reggie Oliver The Children of Monte Rosa
A strong entry from Oliver, a boy has a strange experience at the villa of some rich eccentric people. The resolution is deceptively ordinary and of this world, but there is one more stage to the story...

Avalon Brantley Under Different Stars
This is my first story by Brantley, though I had decided long ago that I would like her work. But this was a little disappointing, since it relied so heavily on fragmented prose, and I didn't really know what was going on (which should be a good thing.) In fact, in my dismay, I then read another story of hers, Grandfather, just to reassure myself that the fragmented style was specific to this story, and not what she did every time. I then reread this story, and... I'm working on it.

Farah Rose Smith The Witch is the Body
This is another story I immediately reread, and the second time through I was able to understand it better. This is a good thing.

Colin Insole Flower of the Sun
One of my favorites of the new school, this story at first seemed ordinary, but as it progressed, I began to see the subtlety I like in his work.

Adam S. Cantwell Moonpaths of the Departed
This one was good. It had me backtracking, though that might be my fault. It had some interesting scenes in it, and it sent me to Wikipedia, featuring as it does an actual person from history.

Brendan Connell The Chymical Wedding of Des Esseintes
The best part of this story is the alternate city theme, and the disturbing scene at the end.

Mark Valentine A Walled Garden on the Bosphorus
It's always a pleasure to read Valentine. This is one of his "other Europe" stories, where one can't be sure the place actually exists, though that may just be me responding to the wistful mood of the story. "Behind the veil" aptly describes it for me.

Ron Weighell The Four Strengths of Shadow
I need to read more Weighell. Between this story and the only other Weighell I've read - King Satyr - I think I'm going to like him. He is able to convey and bring alive the hidden past, the occult, in this story, and in the novel the distant hidden past, and that works for me.

R. Ostermeier The Bearing
This is the only story in the book I'd read before, but I read it again. And I'm glad I did. This writer (Jamie Walsh) manages every time to create a world and story that is both creepy - in a way like I've never thought of before but wish I had - and compelling and completely original. I'm jealous. There are only a couple Broodcomb Press books I haven't gotten to yet, but I have been impressed by all of them. And yet, they seem to take forever to sell out. Folks: if you haven't checked them out yet, stop dithering! Okay, there you have it.

Damian Murphy St. Severina's Fire
Murphy is another writer of the new school I am liking more the more I read from him. It may not be as good as the R. Ostemeier story, but maybe it is! It's probably my favorite in the book, and so I will forgive the editor for including one of his own, and admire him for not placing it last (or first.) That would be unfair! I need to read more of him, too.

Martin Locker The Dreaming Plateau
This final story is not the best, and I was skeptical about it well into it, but it got better and was pulled together in the final paragraph (more than one whole page long.)

 

[Taras]

This is my first story by Brantley, though I had decided long ago that I would like her work. But this was a little disappointing, since it relied so heavily on fragmented prose, and I didn't really know what was going on (which should be a good thing.) In fact, in my dismay, I then read another story of hers, Grandfather, just to reassure myself that the fragmented style was specific to this story, and not what she did every time. I then reread this story, and... I'm working on it.

That one's a little more abstract than usual, but everything she wrote is worth seeking out. There's another of her stories in a Snuggly anthology that's still in print, "Great Seizers' Ghosts", riffing on a Machen story, that's one of her best. I also think "Grandfather" which you read, is up there, and perhaps my favorite, "Hognissaga", which has appeared in a trade paperback anthology IIRC but perhaps as an edited version - the limited run Descended Suns Resuscitate is what you want to get a hold of. And House of Silence, of course.

 

[Zaharoff]

Simon Clark

Clark, Simon - Vampyrrhic

Responding to the invite from his aged, yet vigorous, uncle, David returns to the childhood home of Leppington.
The town’s fortune was built on the huge slaughterhouse, owned by the Leppington family (including David Leppington) for generations.
Events are stirring underneath, with dark shadows and whispered claims swirling madly.
The hotel proprietress resembles a Goth movie presenter. One guest is transfixed by video cassettes of the locked cellar. More? How about a thuggish employee who can read minds?
Then there is Thor. You know, the “if I had a hammer” god. And Thor has an ungodly army!
Kitchen sink horror, meaning any and everything our author could dream up is mixed in.
Long, extremely fast moving, a diverting page turner.
One of those titles I bought years ago for old age reading.
My limited edition (of 1000) is signed with what resembles a donkey doodle.

 

[Ironrose]

The Apple Tree by Daphne du Maurier

This is my first time reading du Maurier. The name was vaguely familiar, but due to my habits of avoiding the main streets in favor of the back alleys, I didn't know anything about her. I came across her name in reference to her having written the story "The Birds," which was the inspiration for Hitchcock (I have seen that film.)

It was only after I'd read the first story in the book that I thought to see what S. T. Joshi had to say about her: "Daphne du Maurier might be discussed here if only because, like the great majority of popular writers, her writing embodies an aesthetic conservatism that was in large part the secret of her success..." I wasn't, and still am not entirely, sure exactly what he's saying here. But I did enjoy this book, especially the first story, and do intend to read more from her, though I understand her novels are not supernatural.

The stories:

"Monte Verita"
This one really grabbed me from the start, partly because of the setting (early 1900s England) and the careful style of her prose (aesthetic conservatism?) The story was defined by a haunted, dreamy atmosphere that works for me, so I spent a few days in a low level excitement that I might have found a new favorite.

"The Birds"
Joshi says: [This] is a textbook instance of a poor story that can be saved by imaginative treatment in film." Hitchcock is definitely a master, but I'm not sure I liked his film that much better than this story. They are very different, the story taking place in Cornwall, featuring a farmhand and his family (wife and children,) but that only adds to its charm for me. He also says, "the tale ends in a curiously inconclusive fashion," and I say yes, that's what makes it so compelling for me. These people end up hunkering down and waiting for the apocalypse to end. Still, it's not my favorite story in the book, the prose being a little too amateur for me.

"The Apple Tree"
Joshi says: "this story is too transparent." But while I think it was clear what was going on, the text never actually states it out loud, the only clue being in the first sentence, and then only hinted in the most circumstantial way. I ended up liking this one.

"The Little Photographer"
This was a creepy one, not supernatural, but sometimes real people can be more disturbing than the supernatural, and I didn't see it coming. Unsettling.

"Kiss Me Again, Stranger"
Another creepy one, and also using atmosphere and setting to full effect. And when the end came, it wasn't what I'd been hoping for. (I wanted something more along the lines of "they lived happily ever after.") Alas. But it was another good story.

"The Old Man"
This story had a real mood, too, and though I was caught off guard by the twist ending, and I liked it, I thought it was a little awkward. Still, a fine ending to an enjoyable read.

Joshi also says, "Du Maurier's work is not, on the whole, notably distinguished for its supernatural imaginativeness, and her general lack of skill in the portrayal of character, for all her valiant attempts, renders her tales only slightly above the usual crop of best-selling writers; but now and again she is capable of vivid horrific effects, and her work is not to be entirely despised."

I think this is too harsh, though what I understand is that because it is not supernatural enough, it falls short. But I say these are still good stories, and I don't always need things stated too clearly. And I'll take ambiguity over gratuity any day. This is not the first time we've disagreed, Joshi and me. Another is Oliver Onions, about whom he says much the same thing regarding the lack of the supernatural, but who writes so eloquently (I think) and subtly that his prose makes his work worth reading if only for that.

I do recommend du Maurier, and have another book of stories on my shelf now.

 

[Severini]

Olga Ravn - The Employees

Obviously not science fiction, although it takes place in a distant future, where humans and humanoids coexist and cowork.
The Employees is in fact, a satire so subtle, so discreet, it ends up dodging most of the themes and practices it aims to mock and make fun of. When it hits, the effect is so diluted and filtered that it feels like mixing up water with water.

 

[Severini]

Han Kang - the Vegetarian 3/5 - A short novel divided in 3 acts. The first act is wonderful. A study of madness and repressed desires written with poetic economy culminating in a shocking final act. Yeonghye commits an act of rebelry simple and powerful. Primal is the right word. Straight from her cocooned soul. The following two acts are not up to par with the first. The second, The Mongolian Stain, is focused on a very uninteresting male character and although it features Yeonghye, she is always in the background. The last act, touching and yet very cruel at the same time, is better than the previous one but even so, the bar has been raised too high...

 

[miguel1984]

The Bird Girl: The Story of a Sculpture by Sylvia Shaw Judson by Sandra L. Underwood. This sculpture is the one featured in the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, photographed by Jack Leigh.

The book is not only about the scuplture but a biography of Judson, his father, famed architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, and the cultural movements both were a part of. Highly recommended.

 

[Ironrose]

My humble list for April:

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - I've always struggled with Dick, because his penchant for using ridiculous plot elements seemed out of place amongst his more serious ideas, but I think I have finally found the way in. I do wish he'd spent more time polishing his prose here, and some things just seem silly, but about 3/4 of the way in, it suddenly got good, and I thought the ending was mostly superb. No shootouts, no car chases, just existential crisis. On to more PKD.

2. The Drowning Girl by Caitlin Kiernan - This is one of my more favorite books by one of my more favorite writers. I'd read this before, but wanted to see if it still held up. And it did. The book is a study in fragmented reality, ambiguous and unresolvable, but the first person narrator is nothing if not interesting, and the book is mostly about building her personal reality. And she is probably schizophrenic, so the fact that it is a compelling read is not a given. And what's not to like about a book that is about mermaids and werewolves? I would usually avoid both those tropes...

3. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin - I've also struggled with Le Guin, but I am now finally getting SF, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Some folks seem to dislike Shevek and can't relate to him, but for me, the occasional chapter ending in a poignant and poetic passage was all I needed. I can also say I thought the structure was interesting, with two parallel stories that were actually linear (one led to the other) but were told consecutively, so one reads the book not knowing how Shevek got to the place where he decided to visit the sister planet. More Le Guin to come.

4. The Glamour by Christopher Priest - Another SF, this is the first book from Priest I've read, and while I was drawn in by the first chapter, about halfway through came a chapter I thought was really disappointing. But I stuck with it and in the end thought he'd pulled it off. I can't say the prose was as good as I'd been led to believe, but it was fine. And as I'm learning about SF, it is more about the ideas and the way they are extrapolated than about the prose, unfortunately, since I like what they call stylists. Still, there will be more Priest in my future.

5. Sudden Fear by Edna Sherry - This one is pulp noir from 1948, so it did require somewhat of a shift for me. The book was very fast paced, with maybe too much telling, though that was made up for by Sherry's witty observances on her characters, and the tight plot. And I have to say I was guessing just how the book would end, and it went beyond anything I'd figured. This was a reprint by Stark House, one of a series of noir fiction that inspired classic noir films. I've never seen any of those...

 

[Robin Davies]

I like what they call stylists.

I would recommend M. John Harrison, particularly A Storm of Wings, The Course of the Heart and Light.

 

[Severini]

My humble list for April:

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

if you liked "Do Androids"... I think you will also like Ubik. It´s my favorite PKD novel

 

[Ligrotesque]

My humble list for April:

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

if you liked "Do Androids"... I think you will also like Ubik. Is my favorite PKD novel

You should also try his short story "the Little Black Box" It is the source of the Mercerism in Androids. It is actually a far more outre story and lacks some of the pedestrian prose that detracts from PKD's otherwise profound works.

 

[Ligrotesque]

My humble list for April:

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

if you liked "Do Androids"... I think you will also like Ubik. Is my favorite PKD novel

The short story "The Days of Perky Pat" is one of his most prescient works and is 50 years ahead of the state of things.



You should also try his short story "the Little Black Box" It is the source of the Mercerism in Androids. It is actually a far more outre story and lacks some of the pedestrian prose that detracts from PKD's otherwise profound works.

 

[Ironrose]

I like what they call stylists.

I would recommend M. John Harrison, particularly A Storm of Wings, The Course of the Heart and Light.

Harrison is already one of my favorites. I've read two of those and have the other, as yet unread (Light.) I also wish there were more John Crowley.

PS. I read The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again (twice!) last fall.

 

[Ironrose]

My humble list for April:

1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

if you liked "Do Androids"... I think you will also like Ubik. It´s my favorite PKD novel

I've read Ubik, Three Stigmatas, Man In the High Castle and VALIS (which I liked the best?) He always has a crazy element in his books, which is one of the things I've struggled with, but I'm learning to accept that...

 

[Athammaus]

I like what they call stylists.

I would recommend M. John Harrison, particularly A Storm of Wings, The Course of the Heart and Light.

Harrison is already one of my favorites. I've read two of those and have the other, as yet unread (Light.) I also wish there were more John Crowley.

PS. I read The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again (twice!) last fall.

M. John Harrison's 'Viriconium' books are are incredible. Pastel City (in particular), A Storm of Wings, and In Viriconium (aka The Floating Gods) are books i re-read regularly. They are unique: a rarified amalgam of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.

 

[bendk]

I like what they call stylists.

I would recommend M. John Harrison, particularly A Storm of Wings, The Course of the Heart and Light.

Harrison is already one of my favorites. I've read two of those and have the other, as yet unread (Light.) I also wish there were more John Crowley.

PS. I read The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again (twice!) last fall.

M. John Harrison's 'Viriconium' books are are incredible. Pastel City (in particular), A Storm of Wings, and In Viriconium (aka The Floating Gods) are books i re-read regularly. They are unique: a rarified amalgam of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.

The first one is on Audible read by Simon Vance. A great narrator.

 

[Severini]

Hermann Burger - Tractatus Logico Suicidalis - More than a thousand aphorisms and axioms about suicide. It tackles the subject with deranged obssession, from a variety of angles: social, psychological, artistic and cultural but I wasn´t able to identify any logical one...
The influence of Cioran and Jean Amery is crystal clear.
Like a savage and sentient laughing mirror, the author took his own life months after Tractatus` publication. There are a lot of points pro suicide, some grim and cold like an ice blade while others are so funny that end up standing against it by sheer absurdity ("There is no cure for death, but there is a cure for suicide: Death").
A suicide letter, an endless source of pro-suicide propaganda, a reference book of suicide authors and 'mortologists' and even a theory of Houdini´s death by peritonitis being a suicide 'granted' by death itself. Wonderful book.

 

[Zaharoff]

The Madness Of Dr. Caligari

Various (Editor: Pulver, Joseph) - The Madness Of Dr. Caligari

Enthusiasm from editor Pulver notwithstanding, this is a proverbial grab-bag. Hits and misses. Ripe storytelling and wordy clunkers. Indeed, the failures for me stem from writers, who, in this instance, cannot tell a proper story.

Ross is too old for the college Film Studies course, but as a movie hound, a perceived expert, he anticipates an easy A. “The Words Between” finds his understanding of an Expressionist classic, his ability to coherently write an essay about the film, and his own self-awareness, beginning to fracture.

As with military indoctrination, the master seeks to break down the recruit - or patient - in order to reforge a superior specimen. In this “Conversion”, however, the process excels, resulting in malevolence.

She tells the tale to Tubby. A tale of adolescence, working a part-time job for the neighborhood babysitter. “Somnambule”, in this case not the sleepwalker, but closer to a chrysalis. The numbed soul, emotions and thoughts bent inwards, cocooned, then morphing out of the harmless.

“Et Spiritus Sanctus” showcases the royal daughter, surviving heiress, surrounded by lies, deceivers, manipulators, then coming into her own.

Unlike many collections, the second half of this is very strong (although one attempt was a cross between Kafka and 1984, one imagines the editor was being charitable by including it).

Two Hollywood based yarns, a twisted ballet, and grim obsession set amidst the crumbling days of the Third Reich.

Far as I know, this is still available (2025) from the publisher. Even signed copies!